Hillary Clinton's Campaign on the Brink of Collapse

From Michael Goodwin, at the New York Post, "Hillary on the brink of collapse":

A passage from Ernest  Hemingway fits the moment. In “The Sun Also  Rises,” one character asks,  “How did you go bankrupt?” and another responds: “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

The exchange captures Hillary Clinton’s red alert. She’s been going politically bankrupt for a long time, and now faces the prospect of sudden collapse.

If she’s got a winning defense, she better be quick about it. The ghosts of scandals past are gaining on her and time is not on her side.

The compelling claims that she and Bill Clinton sold favors while she was secretary of state for tens of millions of dollars for themselves and their foundation don’t need to meet the legal standard for bribery. She’s on political trial in a country where Clinton Fatigue alone could be a fatal verdict.

After 25 years of corner-cutting and dishonest behavior, accumulation is her enemy. Each day threatens to deliver the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It may already have happened and we’re just waiting for public opinion to catch up to the facts.
Meanwhile, her Houdini skills are being tested big time.

Hillary’s one big advantage is obvious — she’s the only serious contender for the Democratic nomination, and she beats most GOP opponents in head-to-head matchups. But everything else weighs against her, including momentum.

Start with the fact that the sizzling reports of corrupt deals are coming from major news organizations that reliably tilt left. With supposed friends making the case against her, the tired Clinton defense that the ­attacks are partisan hit jobs has been demolished.

And after digging up so much dirt, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Reuters, Bloomberg News and others are not likely to be content with stonewalling and half-truths, especially given her recent lies about missing e-mails. No wonder the Times editorial page called on her to provide “straightforward answers” to the accusations.

I don’t see how she can meet that test. The outlines of cozy relationships and key transactions are not in dispute. The only issue is whether the millions the Clintons got amount to a quid pro quo.

On the face of it, that’s certainly what they look like. There are several deals we know of, and more could emerge, that put money in the Clintons’ pockets while helping businesses, including some loathsome international figures, make a killing. It is preposterous to argue that it’s all a coincidence.

Her position was further undercut when the family foundation announced it would refile five years of tax returns. In one three-year period, it omitted tens of millions in foreign contributions, reporting “zero” to the IRS. In another two-year period, it admitted to over­reporting government grants by more than $100 million.

A foundation aide described the errors as “typographical,” which is bizarre — and par for the Clinton course. To concede the errors during the firestorm must mean keeping them quiet was an even greater liability.

Sooner rather than later, Hillary will have to meet the press — but what can she possibly say to alter the story lines?

Keep reading.

Plus, the foundation has released a statement, "A Commitment to Honesty, Transparency, and Accountability" (via Memeorandum).

Sammy Braddy's Hot New Photoshoot for Zoo Today!

She's right up there with Lucy Pinder in the magnificent rack department!

At Zoo, "Sammy Braddy is back with an incredible new strip shoot!"

Also, "Sammy Braddy's Hot, Sexy, Topless Gallery."

Transgender People Are Actually Angry at ‘Cisgender’ People Over Bruce Jenner’s Interview

It's always good to start the day with a laugh.

At Sooper Mexican, "You would think that having Bruce Jenner come out as a transgender would make them happy that he’s bringing attention and raising awareness to the transgender cause. Not these people – they think Jenner has too much “white male privilege” and they just generally hate non-transgenders. They call us “cis-genders,” and they are not happy."

Let's Be Honest About Extravagant Consumption

I've had my share of extravagant consumption, and I'm looking forward to some more of it. YOLO.

At the Guardian UK, "Cyber heirs who flaunt their wealth online could be a boon."

Of course the Guardian's agenda is to further inflame class warfare, hence the cheers for greater transparency of ostentatious wealth. And I'll bet there's more admiration for it than the lefties like to admit. Frankly, wealthy leftists wallow in ugly guilt. Get over it and be proud of what you've earned. It could certainly be worse.

Kris Jenner Tells Perez Hilton 'Fuck Off' After Bruce Jenner Interview

Now that is righteous!



Maybe she deleted it, but what a riot.

Here's the tweet from the flaming idiot Perez Hilton, a.k.a., Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr.

#FreddieGray Protesters Riot in Baltimore

At CBS News Baltimore, "Protests Take Violent Turn In Baltimore."

And at RT, "Unrest in Baltimore as thousands protest Freddie Gray’s death."

Laverne Cox Exposes Radical Feminist Exclusionism

Seriously. It's hard to keep up with this nowadays.

At Instapundit, "FIGHT THE POWER: Laverne Cox Gets Naked, Exposes Radical Feminist Exclusionism."

Hillary Clinton is All Style, No Substance

With just a smidgen of corruption.

At the Hill:

Hillary is all style and no substance, Fiorina tells Iowa crowd: http://t.co/pAxmeqm9xz pic.twitter.com/utwhapUrUE

— The Hill (@thehill) April 26, 2015

Also at WSJ, "Carly Fiorina to Launch Presidential Campaign on May 4."

The Moral Case for Capitalism

From James Otteson, at the Manhattan Institute, "An Audacious Promise: The Moral Case for Capitalism":

“The market will take care of everything,” they tell us…. But here’s the problem: it doesn’t work. It has never worked. It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the ’50s and ’60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade. I mean, understand, it’s not as if we haven’t tried this theory.

—President Barack Obama, Osawatomie, Kansas, December 6, 2011

Milton Friedman once said that every time capitalism has been tried, it has succeeded; whereas every time socialism has been tried, it has failed. Yet President Obama has oddly claimed that we’ve tried free-market capitalism, and it “has never worked.” This is rather remarkable. Since 1800, the world’s population has increased sixfold; yet despite this enormous increase, real income per person has increased approximately 16-fold. That is a truly amazing achievement. In America, the increase is even more dramatic: in 1800, the total population in America was 5.3 million, life expectancy was 39, and the real gross domestic product per capita was $1,343 (in 2010 dollars); in 2011, our population was 308 million, our life expectancy was 78, and our GDP per capita was $48,800. Thus even while the population increased 58-fold, our life expectancy doubled, and our GDP per capita increased almost 36-fold. Such growth is unprecedented in the history of humankind. Considering that worldwide per-capita real income for the previous 99.9 percent of human existence averaged consistently around $1 per day, that is extraordinary.

What explains it? It would seem that it is due principally to the complex of institutions usually included under the term “capitalism,” since the main thing that changed between 200 years ago and the previous 100,000 years of human history was the introduction and embrace of so-called capitalist institutions—particularly, private property and markets. One central promise of capitalism has been that it will lead to increasing material prosperity. It seems fair to say that this promise, at least, has been fulfilled beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. Yet people remain suspicious of capitalism—and more than just suspicious: as the Occupy Wall Street movement is only the latest to have shown, we seem ready to indict capitalism for many of our social problems. Why?

A widespread consensus is that capitalism might be necessary to deliver the goods but fails to meet moral muster. By contrast, socialism, while perhaps not practical, is morally superior—if only we could live up to its ideals. Two main charges are typically marshaled against capitalism: it generates inequality by allowing some to become wealthier than others; and it threatens social solidarity by allowing individuals some priority over their communities. Other objections include: it encourages selfishness or greed; it “atomizes” individuals or “alienates” (Marx’s term) people from one another; it exploits natural resources or despoils nature; it impoverishes third-world countries; and it dehumanizes people because the continual search for profit reduces everything, including human beings, to odious dollar-and-cent calculations.

The list of charges against capitalism is long. But some of the charges are not as strong as might be supposed. Take community. Capitalism gives us incentives to trade and associate with people outside our local community, even complete strangers, not on the basis of our love or care for them but out of our own—and their—self-interest. So capitalism enables people to escape the strictures of their local communities. But is that bad? Capitalism creates opportunities for people to trade, exchange, partner, associate, collaborate, cooperate, and share with—as well as learn from—people not only from next door but from around the world—even people who speak different languages, wear different clothing, eat different foods, and worship different gods. The social characteristics that in other times and under different institutions would lead to conflict—even violent, bloody conflict—become, under capitalism, irrelevant—and thus no longer cause for discord. Capitalism encourages people to see those outside their communities not as threats but as opportunities. It gives us an incentive to look beyond our narrow parochialisms and form associations that would otherwise not be possible.

Capitalism therefore does not lead to no community but rather to differently configured ones...

More.

Otteson has a new book, The End of Socialism.

I came across it after reading the discussion at AEI, "‘Once you begin to see humans as the interchangeable members of a class, you begin to dehumanize them’..." (Via Instapudit.)

'Pump It Up'

I'm watching Showtime's documentary, "Elvis Costello: Mystery Dance."

Obviously, I used to love Costello back in the day, but he's anti-Israel, which makes him no different than Roger Waters these days, which is a bummer.

In any case, one for the old times, "Pump It Up."

I've been on tenterhooks
ending in dirty looks,
list'ning to the Muzak,
thinking 'bout this 'n' that.
She said that's that.
I don't wanna chitter-chat.
Turn it down a little bit
or turn it down flat.
Pump it up when you don't really need it.
Pump it up until you can feel it.

Down in the pleasure centre,
hell bent or heaven sent,
listen to the propaganda,
listen to the latest slander.
There's nothing underhand
that she wouldn't understand.

Pump it up until you can feel it.
Pump it up when you don't really need it.

She's been a bad girl.
She's like a chemical.
Though you try to stop it,
she's like a narcotic.
You wanna torture her.
You wanna talk to her.
All the things you bought for her,
putting up your temp'rature.

Pump it up until you can feel it.
Pump it up when you don't really need it.

Out in the fashion show,
down in the bargain bin,
you put your passion out
under the pressure pin.
Fall into submission,
hit-and-run transmission.
No use wishing now for any other sin.

Pump it up until you can feel it.
Pump it up when you don't really need it.

Weekend Page 3 Roundup

The British lovelies, via Egotastic!, "Lacey Banghard, Kelly Hall, Lucy Collet, Rhian Sugden, Rosie Jones All Topless Holler for a Page 3 Roundup."

Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist: Transgender is 'Mental Disorder'; Sex Change 'Biologically Impossible'

At Astute Bloggers, "BRUCE JENNER IS MENTALLY ILL."

Click through for the stuff on "mental disorder." I'm just trippin' on Relia's attack on Gramscian Marxism:

THE PUSH TO NORMALIZE TRANSEXUALITY IS PART OF THE POSTMODERN LEFT'S GRAMSCIAN AGENDA.

SEEING THAT MARXISM HAD FAILED TO TAKE OVER AS MARX HAD PREDICTED, GRAMSCI PROPOSED THAT THE LEFT NEEDED TO DISMANTLE THE CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION FIRST, BEFORE THE STATE COULD BE TAKEN OVER BY SOCIALISTS.

HENCE THE LEFT'S ATTACKS ON FAMILY, AND CHURCH - AND EVERYTHING TRADITIONAL.

WHAT WAS ONCE DEVIANT BECOMES NORMAL UNDER POSTMODERNISM - NORMAL IF NOT LAUDATORY.

THE POSTMODERN LEFT CELEBRATES THE DEVIANT AND TRANSGRESSIVE AND SUBVERSIVE AND ATTACKS WHATEVER IS TRADITIONAL IN THE WEST.

OFTEN THE POSTMODERN LEFT ALSO CELEBRATES CULTURES THAT ARE NOT WESTERN - SUCH AS ISLAMIC CULTURE OR NATIVE AMAZONIAN CULTURE - USUALLY BY SHOWING THEM TO BE EQUAL TO OR BETTER THAN WESTERN CULTURE. THEY DO THIS TO UNDERMINE OUR OWN FAITH IN OUR OWN CULTURE AND TO FOMENT OIKOPHOBIA.

GRAMSCIAN LEFTISTS KNOW THAT ONCE WE LOSE FAITH IN OUR OWN CULTURE, WE CAN BE MORE EASILY SWAYED TO ACCEPT THE CHANGES AND INSTITUTIONS THEY BELIEVE IN.

PREVIOUSLY: "Bruce Jenner: 'I'm a Woman'."

With Collapse of Comcast-Time Warner Deal, Dodgers Fans Still Shutout

It's becoming a protest movement.

At LAT, "For Dodgers fans, the TV shutout continues":

For Dodgers fans, the long wait to see games televised again may be headed into extra innings.

An estimated 70% of Los Angeles-area households don't get the SportsNet LA channel that carries Dodgers games. That situation was expected to be corrected if Comcast Corp.'s planned $45-billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable had succeeded.

With that merger officially pronounced dead Friday, the prospects of a deal to carry the games on other cable and satellite providers were as murky as ever.

"There's no end in sight," said David Carter, executive director of the USC Marshall Sports Business Institute. "There does not appear to be an easy workaround to get this thing done."

With few exceptions, televised Dodgers games can be seen only by customers of Time Warner Cable, which agreed to pay $8.35 billion over 25 years for the rights to distribute the Dodgers-owned SportsNet LA.

Its rivals, including DirecTV and Charter Communications, have refused to pay what they say are excessive fees to carry the games. The standoff began last season and has carried over into the current one.

On Friday, Time Warner Cable chief Robert D. Marcus said he would like to resume talks with other providers.

"It takes willing parties in order to make a deal, and we haven't had much luck getting any of the major distributors to the negotiating table so that we can have productive conversations," Marcus said. "But we are ready, willing and able to have those discussions. We'd love to have the games in front of Dodger fans as soon as we can."

But any kind of resolution is still out of reach as long as pay-TV operators that also include Verizon FiOS, AT&T and Cox Communications continue to bristle at the cost of the channel. Time Warner Cable has asked other cable and satellite TV companies to pay as much as $4.90 a month per subscriber for SportsNet LA, according to industry consulting firm SNL Kagan.

Time Warner Cable and Guggenheim Baseball Management, which owns the Dodgers, overestimated consumer interest and underestimated resistance from other pay-TV operators.

If Comcast had succeeded in acquiring Time Warner Cable, it was expected to cut the price and swallow any losses — partly to curry customer goodwill, and partly because its greater financial clout and assets would have made it easier to horse-trade with DirecTV, the nation's second-largest pay-TV provider.

That could still happen if a new potential buyer, such as Charter, succeeded in acquiring Time Warner Cable...

More.

And for the workaround, "Dodgers fans find ways around local blackout."

The Tolerant Left Responds to Bruce Jenner’s Republican Status

At Gay Patriot.

Nepal Earthquake: Hundreds Dead, Many Feared Trapped

At the BBC, "Nepal earthquake: Hundreds die, many feared trapped."

Plus, "Nepal earthquake 'felt across entire region'", and "Moment Nepal earthquake hit."

More at Memeorandum, "Nepal Earthquake Kills Hundreds and Levels Buildings in Capital."

Bruce Jenner: 'I'm a Woman'

A pretty fascinating interview, you've gotta admit.

At ABC News (via Memeorandum).



More at the Los Angeles Times, "Bruce Jenner and the shifting dynamics of TV's transgender moment."

And of course, the "Republican" controversy, at Memeorandum, "Bruce Jenner: 'I'm A Republican And A Christian'."

Jared Leto is the Joker

Wild.

At USA Today, "First look: Jared Leto is crazy for Joker."

The Suicide Squad wishes you a Happy Anniversary Mr. J! #Joker75 #SuicideSquad @WarnerBrosEnt @DCComics pic.twitter.com/LZXz0x947Q

— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) April 25, 2015

Bill Nye the 'Science Guy' Isn't a Scientist

What a damned mountebank.

At WaPo, "Bill Nye: Climate change is “not something you should be debating or denying”":

Bill Nye is NOT a Science Guy. http://t.co/xCh3wjKljV

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) April 25, 2015

“When James Hansen testified before Congress in 1988, I said ‘Wow, that’s really something,’” Nye says. “My first kids’ book in 1993, I had a demonstration on climate change.” Several episodes of “Bill Nye the Science Guy” also covered the subject.

“It’s not something that’s really debated in the scientific community,” Nye says. “The connection between humans and climate change is about as strong, or a little stronger, than the connection between cigarettes and cancer.”

Not, of course, that Nye is actually a scientist. He trained as an engineer, and worked at Boeing in that role, before trying out his comedic skills in a Seattle Steve Martin lookalike contest — the beginnings of his comedy career. But he says his engineering background is more than sufficient to make sense of the issue.

“I’m not a full time climate scientist, but I know enough about it to know it’s not something you should be debating or denying. It’s something you should be getting-on-with-it-ing,” he says.

Somewhere along the way, Nye also became one of Obama’s favorite science voices. This week, Nye traveled along to the Everglades as the president sought to instill a newfound appreciation not only of the climate change problem, but also for our national parks system, its value to the economy and even, yes, our place-specific memories.

“If you increase the amount of carbon dioxide, the planet’s going to get warmer,” Nye says. “So the president and I sat and talked about all of this.”

The Everglades, Nye says, are “a one of a kind on the Earth’s surface.”

I guess it figures. A movement built on the cult of "scientific" consensus elevates a non-scientist to priesthood status, a man who then becomes a spiritual adviser to President Obama, himself a political hack who maintains power through a ruthless cult of personalty that marshals the media's propaganda apparatus to whip-up the ideological fears and hatred of the left's environmental "bitter clingers" who enable the Democrat downsizing of the American dream.

Bill Nye's fomenting shuttupery of the highest order. And he's a bloody fraud. Man.

Well, as Instapundit would say, "Hit back twice as hard."

No, Farmers Don't Use 80 Percent of California's Water

From Representative Devin Nunes, at National Review, "The statistic is manufactured by environmentalists to distract from the incredible damage their policies have caused":

As the San Joaquin Valley undergoes its third decade of government-induced water shortages, the media suddenly took notice of the California water crisis after Governor Jerry Brown announced statewide water restrictions. In much of the coverage, supposedly powerful farmers were blamed for contributing to the problem by using too much water.

“Agriculture consumes a staggering 80 percent of California’s developed water, even as it accounts for only 2 percent of the state’s gross domestic product,” exclaimed Daily Beast writer Mark Hertsgaard in a piece titled “How Growers Gamed California’s Drought.” That 80-percent statistic was repeated in a Sacramento Bee article titled, “California agriculture, largely spared in new water restrictions, wields huge clout,” and in an ABC News article titled “California’s Drought Plan Mostly Lays Off Agriculture, Oil Industries.” Likewise, the New York Times dutifully reported, “The [State Water Resources Control Board] signaled that it was also about to further restrict water supplies to the agriculture industry, which consumes 80 percent of the water used in the state.”

This is a textbook example of how the media perpetuates a false narrative based on a phony statistic. Farmers do not use 80 percent of California’s water. In reality, 50 percent of the water that is captured by the state’s dams, reservoirs, aqueducts, and other infrastructure is diverted for environmental causes. Farmers, in fact, use 40 percent of the water supply. Environmentalists have manufactured the 80 percent statistic by deliberately excluding environmental diversions from their calculations. Furthermore, in many years there are additional millions of acre-feet of water that are simply flushed into the ocean due to a lack of storage capacity — a situation partly explained by environmental groups’ opposition to new water-storage projects.

It’s unsurprising that environmentalists and the media want to distract attention away from the incredible damage that environmental regulations have done to California’s water supply. Although the rest of the state is now beginning to feel the pinch, these regulations sparked the San Joaquin Valley’s water crisis more than two decades ago. The Endangered Species Act spawned many of these regulations, such as rules that divert usable water to protect baby salmon and a 3-inch baitfish called the Delta smelt, as well as rules that protect the striped bass, a non-native fish that — ironically — eats both baby salmon and smelt. Other harmful regulations stem from legislation backed by environmental groups and approved by Democratic-controlled Congresses in 1992 and 2009. These rules have decimated water supplies for San Joaquin farmers and communities, resulting in zero-percent water allocations and the removal of increasing amounts of farmland from production.

One would think the catastrophic consequences of these environmental regulations would be an important part of the reporting on the water crisis. But these facts are often absent, replaced by a fixation on the 80 percent of the water supply that farmers are falsely accused of monopolizing. None of the four articles cited above even mention the problem of environmental diversions. The same holds true for a recent interview with Governor Brown on ABC’s This Week. In that discussion, host Martha Raddatz focused almost exclusively on farmers’ supposed overuse of the water supply, and she invoked the 80 percent figure twice. The governor himself, a strong proponent of environmental regulations, was silent about the topic during the interview, instead blaming the crisis on global warming.

That is no surprise — President Obama also ignored environmental regulations but spoke ominously about climate change when he addressed the water crisis during a visit to California’s Central Valley in February 2014. Indeed, for many on the left, the California water crisis is just another platform for proclaiming their dogmatic fixation on fighting global warming, a campaign that many environmental extremists have adopted as a religion.

You don’t have to take my word for it; just listen to Rajendra Pachauri, former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the United Nations’ foremost body on global warming. After recently leaving his job amid allegations of sexual harassment, Pachauri wrote in his resignation letter: “For me, the protection of Planet Earth, the survival of all species and sustainability of our ecosystems is more than a mission. It is my religion and my dharma.”

Utterly convinced of the righteousness of their crusade, environmental extremists stop at nothing in pursuing their utopian conception of “sustainability.” The interests of families, farmers, and entire communities — whose very existence is often regarded as an impediment to sustainability — are ignored and derided in the quest for an ever-more pristine environment free from human contamination. In the name of environmental purity, these extremists have fought for decades to cut water supplies for millions of Californians...

More.

U.S. Sends Commandos Around the World in New Power Projection Strategy

Training local forces to die in the U.S. interest. Actually, that's not particularly novel, although the Obama administration's picked up the pace.

At WSJ, "New Way the U.S. Projects Power Around the Globe: Commandos":

MAO, Chad—“Is this good?” yelled the U.S. Special Forces sergeant. “No!”

He waved a paper target showing the dismal marksmanship of the Chadian commandos he was here to teach. Dozens of bullet holes intended for the silhouette’s vital organs were instead scattered in an array of flesh wounds and outright misses.

The Chadians, with a reputation as fierce desert fighters, were contrite. They dropped to the fine Saharan sand and pounded out 20 push-ups. “Next time, we’re going to shoot all of the bullets here,” one Chadian soldier said, gesturing toward the target’s solar plexus.

Such scenes play out around the world, evidence of how the U.S. has come to rely on elite military units to maintain its global dominance.

These days, the sun never sets on America’s special-operations forces. Over the past year, they have landed in 81 countries, most of them training local commandos to fight so American troops don’t have to. From Honduras to Mongolia, Estonia to Djibouti, U.S. special operators teach local soldiers diplomatic skills to shield their countries against extremist ideologies, as well as combat skills to fight militants who break through.

President Barack Obama, as part of his plan to shrink U.S. reliance on traditional warfare, has promised to piece together a web of such alliances from South Asia to the Sahel. Faced with mobile enemies working independently of foreign governments, the U.S. military has scattered small, nimble teams in many places, rather than just maintaining large forces in a few.

The budget for Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., which dispatches elite troops around the world, jumped to $10 billion in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, from $2.2 billion in 2001. Congress has doubled the command to nearly 70,000 people this year, from 33,000 in fiscal 2001. The Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force provide further funding.

Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets, for example, are stationed in the Baltics, training elite troops from Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia for the type of proxy warfare Russia has conducted in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

U.S. forces are also winding down what they consider a successful campaign, begun soon after the Sept. 11 hijackings, to help Filipino forces stymie the al Qaeda-aligned Abu Sayyaf Group. And commanders believe U.S. training of Colombian troops helped turn the tide against rebels and drug traffickers.

At times, U.S. special-operations troops take action themselves, as in the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden in his Pakistani hideout in 2011, or the rescue of freighter Capt. Richard Phillips from Somali pirates in 2009.

U.S. special operators roam the forests of the Central African Republic, alongside Ugandan troops, hunting the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Joseph Kony . The rebel group, considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., has forcibly recruited children into its ranks.

But the vast majority of special-operations missions involve coaxing and coaching foreign forces to combat extremists the U.S. considers threats.

Driving the idea are 14 years of fighting in Afghanistan, and the on-again-off-again battle in Iraq, expensive land wars that have sapped the political support of many Americans. At the same time, the U.S. faces threats from such free-range terror networks as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in Mali; al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen; Islamic State in Syria and Iraq; al-Shabaab in Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria. Most of these militants have no borders, instead concealing themselves among civilians disaffected with their own corrupt or inept rulers.

The special-operations strategy has a mixed record. The U.S. tried it in Vietnam, only to watch an advisory mission metastasize into a costly, full-scale war. The U.S. put years of training into Mali’s military, which crumbled before the swift advance of al Qaeda and its allies in 2012.

The partnership between U.S. and Yemeni special operators to battle al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was disrupted earlier this year when an anti-American rebel group ousted the U.S.-aligned president.

One skeptic, James Carafano, vice president for defense and foreign policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said relying on special-operations forces was akin to saying, “I’m not going to do brain surgery because I’m going to give you an aspirin. The world doesn’t work that way.”

Commandos can hunt down enemy leaders or train small indigenous units, Mr. Carafano said, but they alone can’t build a capable national army.

The strategy isn’t always flexible enough to meet immediate threats. American efforts to enlist, train and arm moderate Syrian rebels have moved so slowly that some potential allies have given up on Washington. Many have been overrun by the same extremist groups the U.S. sought to defeat.

The three-week military exercises in Chad, which ended last month, are a microcosm of the U.S. strategy. The annual event started small a decade ago, and has grown to include 1,300 troops, with special-operations contingents from 18 Western nations coaching commandos from 10 African countries.

“We have a common threat in the form of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Boko Haram and other extremist organizations that threaten our way of life,” said Maj. Gen. Jim Linder, the outgoing commander of Special Operations Command-Africa.

Still more.

Hillary's Spin Machine Can't Shrug Off Uranium Scandal

From Ben Shapiro, at Big Government, "CLINTON CASH: HILLARY’S SPIN MACHINE CAN’T SHRUG OFF URANIUM SCANDAL":

On Friday, Hillary Clinton campaign spokesperson Brian Fallon responded to the chaos swirling around the former secretary of state’s dealings with foreign countries and associated entities that donated to the Clinton Foundation.

Fallon wrote that neither Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash nor Thursday’s New York Times report detailing ties between Hillary, Bill, the Clinton Foundation, and a Russian-owned uranium company called Uranium One present any “direct evidence.” Fallon claims:

[T]he Times story — like the book on which it is based — wrongly suggests that Hillary Clinton’s State Department pushed for the sale’s approval to reward donors who had a financial interest in the deal. Ironically, buried within the story is original reporting that debunks the allegation that then-Secretary Clinton played any role in the review of the sale.

The problem: all of Fallon’s defenses of Clinton ring hollow.

On Friday, Politico spelled out the Clinton team’s overall three-pronged strategy for quashing the alleged bribery scandal:

We have three rules: (1) You can’t stop the onslaught so just act quickly to defuse it; (2) If there is no ‘there’ there the story will burn hot, fast and out; and (3) No handwringing – [Chairman John] Podesta won’t have it.

That response is insufficient, to say the least. Attempting to simply shrug off serious allegations regarding the chairman of the Russian Nuclear Agency-controlled Uranium One funneling $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation won’t cut it. Despite claims that there is no “bombshell” from the Clinton camp, this is a bombshell: it’s a problem when a Russian-controlled company’s head pays cash to the foundation of the secretary of state at the same time it required Hillary Clinton’s State Department to approve activities. That bombshell becomes even bigger when we recognize that the Clintons did not publicly identify the donors, in violation of a memorandum of understanding with the Obama administration.

Hillary Clinton does not get to decide what constitutes a bombshell. The American people do. And if there truly is no “there” there, then why did Hillary Clinton destroy her emails? Why did she violate that memo of understanding with the Obama administration? Why would the Clinton Foundation have to refile its tax returns? Simply put, Hillary Clinton hid a foreign donation from the head of a company controlled by the Kremlin and seeking access to American and Kazakh uranium – a donation that occurred at the same time as a State Department decision benefiting that company.

Hillary Clinton and her team seem to expect that the media world will resonate to them the same way they did in the 1990s. Matt Drudge changed the coverage of the Clintons by destroying the cozy relationship between the mainstream media, who wanted to kill the Lewinsky story, and the reader; now media are punished for failures to report. Should the media downplay this scandal, the American people will chalk it up to media bias, rather than the notion that there is no scandal to investigate.

And the media have plenty of questions to ask...

More.

Playboy Playmate Gia Genevieve in Terry Richardson Photoshoot

At Egotastic!, "Gia Genevieve Strips Down for Terry Richardson."

BONUS: "Gia Genevieve for Playboy March 2015 (VIDEO)."

Hillary's Culture of Corruption

At IBD, "Hillary Clinton's Culture of Corruption May Doom Candidacy":

.@HillaryClinton's culture of corruption may doom her candidacy http://t.co/EMqPUsTJ1l - #NotHillary2016 - pic.twitter.com/3QpSaeYP8C

— Daniel John Sobieski (@gerfingerpoken) April 21, 2015

Hillary's emails may be only the tip of an iceberg that could include Clinton Foundation donations to shield Boko Haram from being designated a terrorist group and her brother's involvement in a Haitian gold mine.

We doubt Team Hillary was thrilled or her critics surprised Tuesday when the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security named Mrs. Clinton's brother, Tony Rodham, in a report about a firm that allegedly received preferential treatment from the Obama administration.

The firm, Gulf Coast Funds Management, with Tony Rodham listed as its chief executive, allegedly benefited from what the report says was "politically motivated" intervention of then-United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Majorkas, whom president Obama promoted to be the No. 2 official at DHS even as he was under investigation.

Majorkas, according to the IG report, appeared to give "favoritism and special access" to politically connected Democrats who intervened in the application process for the EB-5 (Employee-Based Fifth Preference) visa program, which grants visas to wealthy foreigners who can invest up to $500,000 in U.S. business ventures.

Along with Hillary's brother, Gulf Coast is also linked to now-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who served as chair of the Democratic National Committee when Hillary's husband, Bill Clinton, was president. McAuliffe's company was working with Gulf Coast, a firm that specialized in obtaining EB-5 visas for investors.

So we have a high Obama administration official conspiring to grant visas to wealthy investors in a firm run by Hillary's brother, Tony Rodham, that was assisting a firm run by Hillary's political ally Terry McAuliffe.

Now-DHS Deputy Secretary Alejandro Majorkas' intervention on behalf of McAuliffe's GreenTech Automotive company was "unprecedented," according to the IG report.

Last month, the Washington Post reported on another deal involving Rodham that could prove politically embarrassing and damaging for his sister. It seems that he sits on the board of a company that got a coveted gold-mining contract from the government of Haiti after the Clinton Foundation sponsored relief work in Haiti.

In interviews with the Post, both Rodham and the chief executive of Delaware-based VCS Mining said they were introduced at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, which seems more and more to be an unseemly mix of charitable work with the political and business interests of Clinton Foundation donors.

And then there's Hillary's strange dealings regarding the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram, which just recently pledged its allegiance to the ever-expanding Islamic State — dubbed the "JV team" by President Obama, who has yet to make good on his pledge to degrade and destroy them.

My god, you'd think the Clinton's care more about the interests of America's enemies more than America's interests!

Keep reading.

Irvine Police Arrest Three BLACK MALE Suspects for Residential Burglary

I never see black thugs like this in Irvine. I seriously cannot recall ever seeing people like this around here. These mofos were from out of town, shakin' down the Irvine locals.

I wish the media would call these people out by race. The press has no problem identifying "white" policeman shooting "unarmed black" suspects. But identifying black criminals on the streets in Irvine. That's racist!

At CBS-KCAL 9 Los Angeles:

IPD @IrvinePolice Three Suspects Arrested for Residential Burglary http://t.co/0Ip8lCNE9b pic.twitter.com/njxLmuvDcr

— KCBS KCAL (@KCBSKCALDesk) April 24, 2015

And from the press release:

IRVINE, CA – Three suspects have been arrested for burglarizing an Irvine home. Derron Anthony Jefferson, 26, Quincy Carnell Keaton, 25, and Shatavia Sharon Phillips, 18, were arrested by Irvine Police Department (IPD) officers after a City of Irvine employee observed a burglary in progress.

At approximately 9:15 a.m. on April 23, 2015, a City of Irvine Code Enforcement Officer was driving in the area of Lorraine Way and Irvine Center Drive, where she observed Jefferson and Keaton attempting to load a large safe into the front seat of a black Nissan Altima parked in front of a residence. Upon seeing the City vehicle, the suspects quickly got into the vehicle and fled the scene, leaving the large safe on the parkway in front of the home.

The Code Enforcement Officer immediately contacted IPD, reported her observations and provided a description of the suspects and their vehicle. An alert IPD officer observed the suspects’ vehicle driving on West Yale Loop, approximately two miles from the location of the original call.

A vehicle stop was conducted and the three suspects in the car, Jefferson, Keaton, and Phillips, were detained and ultimately arrested for residential burglary. Inside the vehicle, officers located burglary tools, gloves, and stolen property from the victim’s residence. The investigation showed that the suspects had forced entry into the burglarized home by prying open a side window. Once inside, the suspects ransacked the home seeking valuables. All of the property stolen from the residence was recovered from the suspects’ vehicle.

Jefferson and Keaton are on parole for burglary. The investigation is ongoing and anyone with additional information is asked to contact IPD Detective Ramon Lerma at 949-724-7233.

Dognapping Scam — Criminals Posing as Animal Control Officers Steal Beloved Dogs in L.A. (VIDEO)

This is heartbreaking.

Watch, at KCAL 9 Los Angeles, "Police Have Warning to Pet Owners About New Dognapping Scam."

Lesbian Go-Go Dancing

Hmm, maybe they should bring this to the Whiskey in L.A., the original home of go-go dancing.

At the Guardian UK, "Lesbian go-go dancing: subverting the gaze one sexy step at a time":

“I’m going to get naked as we chat,” Caitlyn informs me as she starts pulling off her shirt, rummaging around in a duffel bag for her go-go gear. “Sorry this room is so small. I have to share it with another dancer and a drag queen, and the drag queen leaves her stuff everywhere,” she says. She pulls a pair of fishnet tights out of her bag. “So what do you want to know?”

That’s a good question. It’s around 11pm on a Friday, and I’m perched on a chair in a changing room on the second floor of the Stonewall Inn in New York. I’m here to learn about the world of lesbian go-go dancing.

Caitlyn Seitz, who is maneuvering into fishnets in front of me, has been dancing here for the last three years, hyping up a largely gay-girl crowd at the popular Friday night Lesbo-a-Go-Go parties.

I’ve gone to a bunch of these parties and it has always struck me that the spectacle of a woman dancing half-naked for tips would, in a different context, be considered objectification. And yet, when a woman dances provocatively for other women – when you have lesbians exercising a female gaze – it intuitively feels far more equitable than a woman dancing for men. But is that really the case?

It's not "objectification" if women strip for other women.

The feminist hypocrisy. You gotta love it!

But keep reading.

(And hey, they do have lesbian go-go in Los Angeles, at the Abbey in WeHo, where else?)

Baboons Steal Food from Truck in Tanzania (VIDEO)

Watch: "Baboon burglary! Sneaky baboons steal supplies from truck."

Via London's Daily Mail, "Never leave your truck unattended in Tanzania."

Today's Deals at Amazon

Do some shopping: Gold Box Deals at Amazon.

Also, Shop Amazon - Mother's Day Gifts.

Material Witness in Federal 'Maternity Tourism' Case Caught Trying to Flee to Beijing

I think we should treat the Chinese maternity tourists as enemy combatants.

Lock them up in a prison camp in orange jump suits.

At the Los Angeles Times, "'Maternity tourism' witness held after trying to board flight to China."

Armenians to 'March for Justice' in Los Angeles

Now that is a righteous march!

At CBS News Los Angeles:

MT @jeffnguyen: Right Now: Sunset Blvd in #Hollywood closed for #MarchForJustice. pic.twitter.com/1m09yYcAYy Story: http://t.co/l0wEO9DCQd

— CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) April 24, 2015

Also, at the Washington Post, "Obama’s statement on Armenia avoids ‘genocide’."

And at Astute Bloggers, "ONCE AGAIN, OBAMA REFUSES TO USE THE TERM 'ARMENIAN GENOCIDE'."

And at Fresno's ABC News affiliate KFSN 30, "FRESNO ARMENIANS CALL PRESIDENT'S DECISION NOT TO SAY 'GENOCIDE' LAUGHABLE."

Cirque du Soleil Performers Thrown Onto Workman's Compensation After Injury

This is interesting, at WSJ, "The Perils of Workers’ Comp for Injured Cirque du Soleil Performers":

Natasha Hallett was a longtime performer at Cirque du Soleil, playing a key role in the circus giant’s La Nouba show in Orlando, Fla. Then she made a mistake.

Ms. Hallett says she forgot to put a double loop through her harness for a flying trick, and a colleague didn’t notice the oversight during a safety check. She tumbled about 40 feet to the stage during a Cirque performance, shattering 19 bones from the waist down. “Like a horse that broke its leg, once you are injured you are pretty much no good for them anymore,” Ms. Hallett said.

Artists at Cirque du Soleil put their unusually adept bodies at risk to entertain audiences, just as many professional athletes do. But unlike many pro athletes, Cirque performers don’t get special treatment, such as continuing to receive regular pay, if they suffer severe injuries.

Instead, most of them are treated like ordinary workers, thrust into a complex workers’ compensation system that provides limited recompense for lost wages and permanent disabilities.

A small number of injured workers whose contracts provide for it do receive extra compensation after an injury, executives said. But relying primarily on workers’ compensation payments “is the best solution in terms of management,” Cirque spokeswoman Renée-Claude Ménard said. The company declined to comment on specific cases of injury....

Workers’ compensation laws vary widely, but they generally prevent workers from suing their employer for negligence.

Meaghan Muller, a performer from the Atlanta area who was badly injured in a fall onto a concrete floor while training at Cirque’s Montreal headquarters, said that Quebec authorities required her to seek medical treatment in Canada for the first year after her accident. She later needed four surgeries in the U.S. to correct what Canadian surgeons had done, she said.

Heh. Merica!

Keep reading.

'Don't you someday want to see a woman president of the USA? ...'

Watch Gavin McInnes, at the Rebel. (Via Kathy Shaidle.)

'Many human beings, apparently, never quite get over an innate totalitarian impulse...'

From Heather Wilhelm, at RCP, "Attack of the Leftist Snowflakes."

Via Instapundit. (Be sure to click through for more on the leftist snowflakes."

I'm Reminded of Mark Steyn with All the Climate Change Hysteria and Hypocrisy this Week

I haven't heard much recently on the Mann vs. Steyn lawsuit, so I checked over at the dude's blog, and behold: "The Science is Settled!"

And check out his books, Climate Change: The Facts, and The Undocumented Mark Steyn.

Obama's Earth Day Hypocrisy

At Free Beacon, "Obama Earth Day Trip to Emit 5 Times as Much CO2 as the Average American Does Annually."

Plus, at CBS DC, "More Than 9,000 Gallons of Fuel to Be Used on Air Force One for Obama's Trip to Everglades on Earth Day."

And at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Obama under fire for Air Force One's big carbon footprint on Earth Day."

And watch, from Bret Baier's Special Report yesterday, "Earth Day Message - Obama's Mixed Messages on Climate Change."

@hale_razor Hey, 100 TONS of CO2 seems a small sacrifice for a photo op & an #EarthDay speech nobody will remember. pic.twitter.com/1mSzZpC07H

— Soquel by the Creek (@SoquelCreek) April 22, 2015

'What Are We Doing?' Robert Downey Jr. Asks After an Interview Gets Personal — And Before He Walks Out

He's conservative.

At LAT, "Robert Downey Jr. interview gets too 'Diane Sawyer-esque,' so he walks out."

And at Pat Dollard's, "Robert Downey Jr. Leaves Mid-Interview After Being Badgered About Not Being a Liberal."

Earth Day Overload

Here's a pretty good piece from Nick Gillespie, which is saying something, since I think he's kinda blustery in any case, heh.

At Reason, "Jerry's Brown Apocalyptic 'Warning to Humanity'."

Watch the video at the link as well: "The Top Five Environmental Disasters that Didn't Happen."

More at the Atlantic, "California's Poorest Could Start Paying More for Water," and the L.A. Times, "What's next on California's water rates?"

There's No Such Thing as Consensus Science

From Professor Mark Perry, at the American Enterprise Institute, "For Earth Day: Michael Crichton explains why there is “no such thing as consensus science”":

Michael Crichton, @Caltech lecture, 2003: [H/T: @Mark_J_Perry] pic.twitter.com/4QO8y7naNn

— Jeff Jacoby (@Jeff_Jacoby) April 21, 2015

Do a Google search for the term “global warming consensus” and you’ll find more than 23,000 links (and 18,000,000 results without the quotations marks). The first link is to this NASA webpage about “scientific consensus” with the following bold statement:

Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities, and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.

As part of my series of posts this week to recognize the green holy day called Earth Day, here’s what Michael Crichton had to say about “scientific consensus” back in 2003 when he gave a lecture at the California Institute of Technology titled “Aliens Cause Global Warming” (emphasis mine):

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world.

In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.

In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let’s review a few cases...

Keep reading.

Celebrate Earth Day with Robert Zubrin's Merchants of Despair

Once again, check out Robert Zubrin's book, Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism.

Climate Hypocrite Leonardo DiCaprio Flew Private Jet from Los Angeles to New York Six Times in Six Weeks

Michelle Fields is screencapped at the piece.

At London's Daily Mail, "Leonardo DiCaprio the 'eco warrior' flew on a private jet from NY to LA SIX times in SIX weeks, Sony hack documents reveal."

Obama Commemorating Earth Day with Massive Carbon Footprint in Florida

At the Tampa Bay Times, "Obama's big carbon footprint celebrating Earth Day in Fla":

@VictoriaTaft #EarthDay2015 tweet of the day!! @TwitchyTeam pic.twitter.com/queB62S1Gq

— Tom Thurman (@Tommm1954) April 22, 2015

President Obama will visit the Everglades Wednesday, Earth Day, to call attention to global warming and the administration's efforts to cut carbon pollution across the globe. CBS News reporter Mark Knoller raised an intervesting question with honorary Floridian and former Jim Davis adviser Josh Earnest at the press secretary's daily briefing today. Here's a transcript of the exchange:

     Q    Thanks.  On the Everglades trip, does the President risk undermining his message when he flies to the Everglades on a 747 hundreds of miles to make a statement about climate change?  (Laughter.)
     Q    He could drive.  (Laughter.)
     MR. EARNEST:  It’s a provocative question.
     Q    Take a van.
     MR. EARNEST:  But, no, he doesn't.  The President believes that there are important changes that we can make to reduce carbon pollution in this country, and we can do it in a way that will be good for our economy.  That is precisely the case that the President will be making at the Everglades.  And he’s looking forward to the trip.
     Q    Does he try to minimize the carbon footprint that he leaves whenever he goes anywhere?
     MR. EARNEST:  Well, obviously, the Department of Defense and the Presidential Airlift Group at the United States Air Force is responsible for the President’s transportation.  So you can talk to them about any steps that they may have taken.
     I can say as a general matter that the Department of Defense has acknowledged that climate change does pose a national security threat to the United States.  And there are a lot of practices that the Department of Defense has taken to try to reduce their carbon footprint.  I don't know how that intersects with the use of Air Force One, but you could check with the Air Force on that.
All right?  Thanks, everybody.  Have a good Monday.

Obama Earth Day on Air Force One

At the Washington Times, "Inevitable: An Earth Day trip on Air Force One":

Earth Day could be interesting in Florida: President Obama will journey aboard Air Force to visit the Everglades on Wednesday, burning jet fuel and taxpayer funds as he goes. Well, at least it’s not as far as Tokyo, which was his Earth Day destination last year. That venture prompted the London Daily Mail to do the math and reveal that magnificent but pricey aircraft consumes 5 gallons of jet fuel for every mile it flies — emitting over 21 pounds of dreaded CO2 per gallon. The fuel alone costs taxpayers about $180,000 per hour of flight time. Oh, the carbon footprint — and the irony.

“We’ve committed to doubling the pace at which we cut carbon pollution,” Mr. Obama said during a weekend address that outlined the details of his trip. Climate change is on the president’s mind, though, and he will emphasize the potential economic and environmental impact of global warming and rising seas on the fragile Everglades during an event in Homestead, conveniently the home to an Air Force Reserve base.

Happy Earth Day! Drivers Ditching Hybrids and Electric Vehicles for SUVs

And it's not just about cheaper gas prices these days. Hybrids and EVs just aren't "equal" after all.

At USA Today, "Earth Day, bah! Hybrid, EV owners shift to SUVs":

Owners of gas-electric hybrids and battery electric vehicles are less and less likely to trade for another one, according to data from auto buying and research site Edmunds.com. Even more surprising: they are increasingly likely to shift to SUVs.

The disenchantment with clean-air fuel savers appears to be the result mainly of relatively low fuel prices, though there also seems to be a decline in their being seen as "special."

"For better or worse, it looks like many hybrid and EV owners are driven more by financial motives rather than a responsibility to the environment," says Edmunds.com Director of Industry Analysis Jessica Caldwell. "Three years ago, when gas was at near-record highs, it was a lot easier to rationalize the price premiums on alternative fuel vehicles. But with today's gas prices as low as they are, the math just doesn't make a very compelling case."

It's a blow to the sentiment of Earth Day today, the 45th annual fete for the planet.

And it's bad news for automakers, who need to sell more and more alternative-power vehicles to meet tightening federal fuel-economy rules.

To avoid a backlog, General Motors recently cut the prices of its Spark EV and Cadillac ELR extended-range electric and temporarily halted production of its Chevrolet Volt plug-in car.

Sales of the Nissan Leaf, the best -selling EV in the U.S., are down 27.2% the first quarter this year in a new-vehicle market up 5.6%, says Autodata.

Toyota's Prius gas-electric hybrid is down 7.7%; the plug-in version, fell 61.4%, Autodata says.

Overall, only 45% of this year's hybrid and EV trade-ins have involved the purchase of another alternative-power vehicle, Edmunds data show. That's down from slightly more than 60% in 2012 and is the first time the rate has fallen below 50%...

Hollywood Leftist Ben Affleck Had Inconvenient Truth About Slave-Owning Ancestor Scrubbed from PBS 'Finding Your Roots' Segment

Pretty typical, actually.

At LAT, "PBS sets internal review over Ben Affleck's 'Finding Your Roots' segment."

Angry Baltimore Protester Grabs Microphone from CNN Reporter Miguel Marquez: 'F*** You! F*** That! F*** CNN!'

At Twitchy, with video, "Angry Baltimore protester takes over CNN’s microphone during Freddie Gray march."

Also at NYT, "Freddie Gray in Baltimore: Another City, Another Death in the Public Eye."

Pamela Geller Counters Attacks on AFDI Islamic Jew Hatred Bus Ads

At NBC News Philadelphia, via Blazing Cat Fur:

Buy 'Clinton Cash' Book Bombshell Pre-Release

Hey, buy your copy pre-release at Amazon, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.

And from yesterday, ICYMI, "'Clinton Cash' Book Bombshell Set to Explode Hillary Clinton Democrat Party Pay-to-Play Scandal."

Benjamin Netanyahu at Annual Holocaust Memorial Day Ceremony — Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem

He's a great guy.

Rich Smuggling Trade Fuels Deadly Migration Across Mediterranean

At WSJ, "Brazen, multi-million-dollar people-smuggling enterprise run by Libyan militias and tribesmen proves hard to combat":

The deaths of more than 1,000 Italy-bound migrants in the Mediterranean Sea in the last week are the product of a multi-million-dollar people-smuggling enterprise run by Libyan militias, tribesmen and bandits, law-enforcement officials and migrant-aid groups say.

Authorities in the European Union on Monday pledged to step up efforts to crack down on a well-oiled and increasingly brazen business of putting desperate people on rickety boats and setting them afloat on the deadliest migrant route in the world. Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni called for international support “to fight against these traffickers of human beings, this new slavery of the 21st century.”

Yeah, it's bad.

More at London's Daily Mail, "Captain arrested over Mediterranean migrant disaster: Two charged with 'multiple manslaughter' when they step on to Italian soil with survivors - as EU vows to 'capture and destroy' human traffickers' boats."

Also at the Guardian UK, "EU ministers meet for crisis talks after hundreds of migrants drown in Mediterranean."

National Review on Wisconsin Democrat Party's 'John Doe' Investigations

I remember reading about the Democrat Party's Nazi-style "John Doe" raids a couple of years ago, at the Wall Street Journal, "Wisconsin Political Speech Raid."

As terrifying as initial reports were, you get a genuine appreciation of Democrat Gestapo tactics with National Review's report, "Wisconsin's Shame: ‘I Thought It Was a Home Invasion’." (Via Memeorandum.)

Patterico writes:

The investigations were conducted at the behest of a prosecutor whose offices “were festooned with the ‘blue fist’ poster of the labor-union movement.” According to one prosecutor who spoke to journalist Stuart Taylor, the wife of the lead prosecutor, John Chisholm, was “a teachers’-union shop steward who was distraught over Act 10’s union reforms” — and Chisholm “felt it was his personal duty” to stop the reforms. Pursuant to the politically motivated subpoenas lacking in probable cause, prosecutors subpoenaed electronic data such as emails and conducted these abusive raids.

It’s the type of activity you would expect to see from the Stasi in East Germany. Conservative activists in Wisconsin literally do not feel safe. They think that police could burst into their homes at any moment to punish them for their First Amendment activity.

In a country that actually valued freedom, this story would spark front-page headlines all over the country. It would be all anyone would be talking about for weeks, and nobody would rest until we knew it could never, ever happen again.

We are no longer such a country.

Gestapo. Stasi. Well, you get the point.

More at Instapundit.

'Clinton Cash' Book Bombshell Set to Explode Hillary Clinton Democrat Party Pay-to-Play Scandal

From Amy Chozick, at the New York Times, "New Book, ‘Clinton Cash,’ Questions Foreign Donations to Foundation" (at Memeorandum):

The book does not hit shelves until May 5, but already the Republican Rand Paul has called its findings “big news” that will “shock people” and make voters “question” the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by Peter Schweizer — a 186-page investigation of donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities — is proving the most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle still in its infancy.

The book, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, asserts that foreign entities who made payments to the Clinton Foundation and to Mr. Clinton through high speaking fees received favors from Mrs. Clinton’s State Department in return.

“We will see a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds,” Mr. Schweizer writes.

His examples include a free-trade agreement in Colombia that benefited a major foundation donor’s natural resource investments in the South American nation, development projects in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake in 2010, and more than $1 million in payments to Mr. Clinton by a Canadian bank and major shareholder in the Keystone XL oil pipeline around the time the project was being debated in the State Department.

In the long lead up to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign announcement, aides proved adept in swatting down critical books as conservative propaganda, including Edward Klein’s “Blood Feud,” about tensions between the Clintons and the Obamas, and Daniel Halper’s “Clinton Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine.”

But “Clinton Cash” is potentially more unsettling, both because of its focused reporting and because major news organizations including The Times, The Washington Post and Fox News have exclusive agreements with the author  to pursue the story lines found in the book.

Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which includes Mr. Paul and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, have been briefed on the book’s findings, and its contents have already made their way into several of the Republican presidential candidates’ campaigns.

Conservative “super PACs” plan to seize on “Clinton Cash,” and a pro-Democrat super PAC has already assembled a dossier on Mr. Schweizer, a speechwriting consultant to former President George W. Bush and a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution who has contributed to the conservative website Breitbart.com, to make the case that he has a bias against Mrs. Clinton.

And the newly assembled Clinton campaign team is planning a full-court press to diminish the book as yet another conservative hit job.

A campaign spokesman, Brian Fallon, called the book part of the Republicans’ coordinated attack strategy on Mrs. Clinton “twisting previously known facts into absurd conspiracy theories,” and he said “it will not be the first work of partisan-fueled fiction about the Clintons’ record, and we know it will not be the last.”

Mr. Schweizer and a spokeswoman for HarperCollins, which is owned by News Corporation and is publishing the book, declined to comment.

The timing is problematic for Mrs. Clinton as she begins a campaign to position herself as a “champion for everyday Americans.”

From 2001 to 2012, the Clintons’ income was at least $136.5 million, Mr. Schweizer writes, using a figure previously reported in The Post. “During Hillary’s years of public service, the Clintons have conducted or facilitated hundreds of large transactions” with foreign governments and individuals, he writes. “Some of these transactions have put millions in their own pockets.”

The Clinton Foundation has come under scrutiny for accepting foreign donations while Mrs. Clinton served as secretary of state. Last week, the foundation revised its policy to allow donations from countries like Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Britain but prohibit giving by other nations in the Middle East.

Mr. Schweizer’s book will be released the same day former President Bill Clinton and the Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea, will host the Clinton Global Initiative gathering with donors in Morocco, the culmination of a foundation trip to several African nations. (A chapter in the book is titled “Warlord Economics: The Clintons Do Africa.”)

There is a robust market for books critical of the Clintons. The thinly sourced “Blood Feud,” by Mr. Klein, at one point overtook Mrs. Clinton’s memoir “Hard Choices” on the best-seller list.

But whether Mr. Schweizer’s book can deliver the same sales is not clear.

More.

And man does this sound juicy!

See also Politico, "New York Times, Fox News strike deals for anti-Clinton research." Look, if the Old Gray Lady's striking a deal with Schweizer, you know he's got the goods. The editors have access to preliminary copies, so you know they're Jonesin' to rake some tabloid cash on the story. No one's above raw naked interests these days. No one.

And note:

The New York Times, The Washington Post and Fox News have made exclusive agreements with a conservative author for early access to his opposition research on Hillary Clinton, a move that has confounded members of the Clinton campaign and some reporters, the On Media blog has confirmed.

Yes, "some reporters" are confounded --- those paragons of dispassionate media integrity. Confounded I say! Why, how dare other dispassionate paragons throw tribal caution to the wind for the beef of a good tabloid romp?!! Heh!

And with Breitbart fingerprints too!

Still more from ABC News, "White House Won't Comment on Reports of Preferential Treatment for Clinton Foundation Donors." Well who can blame them? Hillary's running for Barack's third term --- or, Bill's, depending on your generational perspective!



Image Credit: Zero Hedge, "Secretary of State for Hire: Hillary Clinton Made Millions from Foreign Donors in Exchange for 'Favors'."

Women at Coachella

At Egotastic!, "Celebrity Cleavage from Coachella Week 2." (Don't miss that Kelly Brook coverage at the link.)

I never did post on Week 1, so here you go: "Kendall Jenner, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Bella Thorne Lead Pack of Show Off Desert Hotties at Coachella Weekend One."

Also, "Peyton List Shakes Her Booty In Jean Shorts at Coachella," and "Hilary Duff Sextastic See-Through Cowgirl at Coachella."

Workers Abuse ADHD Drugs to Boost Productivity

Look, when social norms have completely legitimized recreational drug use, is it any surprise that prescription pharmaceuticals will be abused as well?

At the New York Times, "Workers Seeking Productivity in a Pill Are Abusing A.D.H.D. Drugs":

Fading fast at 11 p.m., Elizabeth texted her dealer and waited just 30 minutes for him to reach her third-floor New York apartment. She handed him a wad of twenties and fifties, received a tattered envelope of pills, and returned to her computer.

Her PowerPoint needed another four hours. Investors in her health-technology start-up wanted re-crunched numbers, a presentation begged for bullet points and emails from global developers would keep arriving well past midnight.

She gulped down one pill — pale orange, like baby aspirin — and then, reconsidering, took one of the pinks, too.

“O.K., now I can work,” Elizabeth exhaled. Several minutes later, she felt her brain snap to attention. She pushed her glasses up her nose and churned until 7 a.m. Only then did she sleep for 90 minutes, before arriving at her office at 9.

The pills were versions of the drug Adderall, an amphetamine-based stimulant prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder that many college students have long used illicitly while studying. Now, experts say, stimulant abuse is graduating into the work force.

Reliable data to quantify how many American workers misuse stimulants does not exist, several experts said.

But in interviews, dozens of people in a wide spectrum of professions said they and co-workers misused stimulants like Adderall, Vyvanse and Concerta to improve work performance. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs or access to the medication.

Doctors and medical ethicists expressed concern for misusers’ health, as stimulants can cause anxiety, addiction and hallucinations when taken in high doses. But they also worried about added pressure in the workplace — where the use by some pressures more to join the trend.

“You’d see addiction in students, but it was pretty rare to see it in an adult,” said Dr. Kimberly Dennis, the medical director of Timberline Knolls, a substance-abuse treatment facility for women outside Chicago.

“We are definitely seeing more than one year ago, more than two years ago, especially in the age range of 25 to 45,” she said.

Elizabeth, a Long Island native in her late 20s, said that to not take Adderall while competitors did would be like playing tennis with a wood racket.

“It is necessary — necessary for survival of the best and the smartest and highest-achieving people,” Elizabeth said. She spoke on the condition that she be identified only by her middle name.

Most users who were interviewed said they got pills by feigning symptoms of A.D.H.D., a disorder marked by severe impulsivity and inattention, to physicians who casually write prescriptions without proper evaluations. Others got them from friends or dealers.

Obtaining or distributing stimulants without a prescription is a federal crime, but the starkest risks of abuse appear to be overdose and addiction.

A 2013 report by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that emergency room visits related to nonmedical use of prescription stimulants among adults 18 to 34 tripled from 2005 to 2011, to almost 23,000.

The agency also reported that from 2010 to 2012, people entering substance rehabilitation centers cited stimulants as their primary substance of abuse 15 percent more often than in the previous three-year period...

More.

Stumbling to War Against Russia?

From Graham Allison and Dimitri Simes, at the National Interest, "Russia and America: Stumbling to War":

AFTER THE Soviet Union collapsed, Richard Nixon observed that the United States had won the Cold War, but had not yet won the peace. Since then, three American presidents—representing both political parties—have not yet accomplished that task. On the contrary, peace seems increasingly out of reach as threats to U.S. security and prosperity multiply both at the systemic level, where dissatisfied major powers are increasingly challenging the international order, and at the state and substate level, where dissatisfied ethnic, tribal, religious and other groups are destabilizing key countries and even entire regions.

Most dangerous are disagreements over the international system and the prerogatives of major powers in their immediate neighborhoods—disputes of the sort that have historically produced the greatest conflicts. And these are at the core of U.S. and Western tensions with Russia and, even more ominously, with China. At present, the most urgent challenge is the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. There, one can hear eerie echoes of the events a century ago that produced the catastrophe known as World War I. For the moment, the ambiguous, narrow and inconsistently interpreted Minsk II agreement is holding, and we can hope that it will lead to further agreements that prevent the return of a hot war. But the war that has already occurred and may continue reflected deep contradictions that America cannot resolve if it does not address them honestly and directly.

In the United States and Europe, many believe that the best way to prevent Russia’s resumption of its historic imperial mission is to assure the independence of Ukraine. They insist that the West must do whatever is required to stop the Kremlin from establishing direct or indirect control over that country. Otherwise, they foresee Russia reassembling the former Soviet empire and threatening all of Europe. Conversely, in Russia, many claim that while Russia is willing to recognize Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity (with the exception of Crimea), Moscow will demand no less than any other great power would on its border. Security on its western frontier requires a special relationship with Ukraine and a degree of deference expected in major powers’ spheres of influence. More specifically, Russia’s establishment sentiment holds that the country can never be secure if Ukraine joins NATO or becomes a part of a hostile Euro-Atlantic community. From their perspective, this makes Ukraine’s nonadversarial status a nonnegotiable demand for any Russia powerful enough to defend its national-security interests.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia was on its knees, dependent on Western assistance and consumed by its own internal affairs. In that context, it was not surprising that Western leaders became accustomed to ignoring Russian perspectives. But since Vladimir Putin took over in 1999, he has led a recovery of Russia’s sense of itself as a great power. Fueled by rising oil production and prices that brought a doubling of Russia’s GDP during his fifteen-year reign, Russians increasingly bridled at such treatment.

Americans would do well to recall the sequence of events that led to Japan’s attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the Second World War. In 1941, the United States imposed a near-total embargo on oil shipments to Japan to punish its aggression on the Asian mainland. Unfortunately, Washington drastically underestimated how Japan would respond. As one of the post–World War II “wise men,” Secretary of State Dean Acheson, observed afterward, the American government’s

misreading was not of what the Japanese government proposed to do in Asia, not of the hostility our embargo would excite, but of the incredibly high risks General Tojo would assume to accomplish his ends. No one in Washington realized that he and his regime regarded the conquest of Asia not as the accomplishment of an ambition but as the survival of a regime. It was a life-and-death matter to them.

Just days before Pearl Harbor, Japanese special envoy Saburo Kurusu told Washington that “the Japanese people believe that economic measures are a much more effective weapon of war than military measures; that . . . they are being placed under severe pressure by the United States to yield to the American position; and that it is preferable to fight rather than to yield to pressure.” Despite this warning, the Japanese response to U.S. economic warfare caught the United States off guard, killing nearly 2,500 people and sinking much of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

I think you can see where this argument is headed, but continue in any case. (Via Instapundit.)

Far-Left Radicalism Goes Mainstream

From Michael Goodwin, at the New York Post, "Radicalism is going mainstream":

Something’s in the air, and it’s not just the normal spring rituals of protests, love and allergies. It’s the unsettling sound of radicalism tearing America apart.

Ideas that only recently were relegated to the fringes are now going mainstream. And policies that were settled, established norms are under vicious assault.

Here’s the real shocker: The radicals are not limited to Occupy Wall Street and other anarchists demonstrating against cops, capitalism and all authority. Instead, respected public figures and government officials who would normally defend the establishment are leading the charge against it.

Take the growing New York movement to opt out of standardized student tests. While unions are protesting the use of tests for teacher evaluations, many middle-class parents are joining them.

Indeed, the most prominent opt-out leader is Rob Astorino, the county executive of Westchester County and last year’s GOP gubernatorial nominee.

Astorino, who presides over a suburban bastion of orderly and manicured prosperity, wants to repeal the Common Core standards adopted by New York and more than 40 other states. He boasted that he and his wife, a special-ed teacher, withheld their children from the exams for the second year because the tests “are poorly and secretly devised, developmentally inappropriate, disruptive to wider learning, and federally rather than locally engineered, among other concerns.”

A Bronx middle-school principal went further down the rabbit hole, charging in a published letter that the tests come from “the same system that facilitated our current economic gap, redlining, crack ­cocaine, Jim Crow and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.”

The principal, Jamaal Bowman of the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action, insisted, “We should not trust the state” because it uses “testing as a smoke screen to destroy public education.”

Wow, imagine what his students are learning.

If that were all, it would be bad enough. But mainstream radicals also are assailing childhood vaccines as another government plot. California is the epicenter, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went off the deep end making the case...

Keep reading.

Armageddon times, on the firing line.